Great Blessings of God
Our Swiss Air flight to Zurich was scheduled to depart from New Delhi on 11th October. We left in the form of a caravan, as it were—five companions, Dr. Saniyasnain Khan, Prof. Farida Khanam, Dr. Rajat Malhotra, Priya Mallik and Khalid Ansari, and myself. We arrived at the airport at 11 pm and boarded the flight, which was scheduled to take 8½ hours to reach its destination, which was at a distance of more than 6000 kilometres.
During the flight, I did a bit of reading. First, I glanced at the latest issue of the Swiss Air in-flight magazine. It had articles in English and German. Then, I came across an article that provided some information about Switzerland. It talked, for instance, about the extensive public transport system in the country and the fact that Switzerland has the most comprehensive cable railway system in the world.
I spotted a copy of the 10th October, 2002 issue of The Times, a daily newspaper from London. There was a picture of a massive statue of Iraq’s President, Saddam Hussein on its front page. A man was standing in front of the statue, doing some work. Compared to the gigantic statue, he seemed like a dwarf! One of nine new statues was made at the Baghdad Fine Arts Academy.
I managed to get deep sleep on the flight. Sleep is a great blessing of God. It has innumerable benefits. About sleep, the French military and political leader Napoleon Bonaparte (d. 1821) said:
‘What a delightful thing rest is—The bed has become a luxury place to me. I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world.’ (Napolean Bonaparte)
The entire flight was very smooth, and so was the landing. How strange it is! A plane flies into the air, climbs to a height of eight or ten kilometres, and then later begins to descend slowly, finally landing at its destination. People consider such things as the handiwork of technology, but in fact, it is a great blessing of God that, in the words of the Quran, ‘He has given you all that you asked of Him.’ (14:34)
